If you’ve ever told me something like, ‘We need to talk later,’ and then walked away, I can almost guarantee you’ve just activated my fight-or-flight system like it’s Black Friday at Best Buy. It’s not that I’m overreacting (though, okay, maybe a little); it’s just that, when you live with CPTSD, vague communication doesn’t merely […]
Loving in Silence: The Quiet Storm of CPTSD
Living with CPTSD means emotions don’t always look the way people expect them to. On the surface, I might come off as calm, maybe a little distant. Like, I’m trying to remember if I left the stove on. But inside? It’s a full-blown Greek tragedy. The chorus is wailing, the lead actor is mid-monologue, someone […]
How To Love Someone With CPTSD And Trauma
I don’t claim to be an expert on all things love and relationships. My love life has been a bit of a bomb site, but I am knowledgeable in living with CPTSD and attempting relationships after trauma. Loving with CPTSD is kind of like trying to build a treehouse during a windstorm. You’ve got the […]
Building Strong Connections While Living with CPTSD
Deconstructing conditioning around relationships, romance and intimacy, especially when you’re navigating CPTSD, is like building a jigsaw puzzle. There is a lot to work through. We have to Deal with our trauma responses and what society deems normal. We’re taught early on what love should look like through movies, books and music. There’s often this […]
If They Wanted To, They Would
I see people throw around phrases. Phrases such as “If they wanted to, they would,” and it frustrates me. It frustrates me because that’s not how trauma works. When it comes to trauma, we have to remove the word “want” because nobody wants trauma, and when it rules your life, it can be quite debilitating. […]
Learning To Accept The Love I Deserve
Learning to accept the love I deserve has not been an easy task for me. I have spent years believing that I was unlovable and nobody would ever fully love me when they learned of my past. That, of course, wasn’t true, and it was again my cPTSD lying to me. To accept that you […]